The Best Hitter You Never Heard Of

May 22, 2013 5:09 PM

Héctor Espino landed in Florida on Aug. 6, 1964. A helicopter reportedly flew over Jacksonville, Fla., trailing a banner with the words ESPINO HAS ARRIVED.
posted by klangklangston (24 comments total)

Mod note: Article is not about Hitler. This is crystal clear if you read any of it.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:44 PM on May 22, 2013 [29 favorites]

I don't really like baseball, and I found this a fascinating and rather moving story.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:00 PM on May 22, 2013

I love baseball, and I really liked this story. Thanks for sharing.
posted by COD at 6:20 PM on May 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

The Best Hitter You Never Heard Of

I don't know, I've known a lot of Hitlers in my time. Switch Hitler, Designated Hitler, Leadoff Hitler, Banjo Hitler... Pinch Hitler is a bit of a douche. So's 8-Hole Hitler, but Cleanup Hitler's a stand-up guy, like Clutch Hitler. My favorite is still No-Hitler, though.


[Article is not about Hitler. This is crystal clear if you read any of it.]

I... um.
posted by mhoye at 7:04 PM on May 22, 2013 [7 favorites]

You know who else was a Hitler, mhoye?
posted by horsewithnoname at 7:13 PM on May 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

I giggled about one Hitler joke. Then I saw six more.

Now I want people to shut the fuck up about Hitler and read the fucking article, because it's pretty fucking good.

(Goddamnit my last fucking MeTa was about how frustrating it is when people don't read the fucking article!)
posted by klangklangston at 7:16 PM on May 22, 2013 [5 favorites]

Oh, man, I left out One Hitler and Ukelele Hitler, sorry Klangston.

(I agree, it's an excellent article, but... there's not a lot there to dig into and pull apart? "That's a well-written article about a principled man who was also an excellent baseball player.")
posted by mhoye at 7:30 PM on May 22, 2013

Oh. I thought the article was going to be about ....

Oh.
posted by surplus at 7:40 PM on May 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm so glad to have read about this... I loved baseball as a child but gave up on it in '94 but maybe following Mexican baseball could be a workaround.
posted by glip at 8:10 PM on May 22, 2013

I don't know much about baseball, so the word "Ruthian" is new to me. I like it and I like that it exists.

Ruth is a surname that works well in this context, though. I'm trying to come up with a similar thing for cricket, but "Bradmanian" and "Tendulkarian" don't have quite the same zazz.
posted by vanar sena at 8:13 PM on May 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

Ruthian - as in an unhittable pitcher who's performance on the mound won a world series for Boston?

Twitch... twitch... No, no Nanette... twitch...
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:27 PM on May 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

vanar sena, you're looking for "Bradmanesque".

Love the stories of weird minor-league, old world baseball. Great story.
posted by N-stoff at 8:46 PM on May 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

Great story. Sounds like a guy who knew what he wanted.
posted by bongo_x at 9:55 PM on May 22, 2013

...and "Tendulkaroid" has a nice sound to it...
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 10:17 PM on May 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

This is a great story. I find the commentary on the mythology surrounding him most fascinating. There aren't a lot of interviews, etc., so there's room for the legend to make itself larger.

(So glad I'm not the only one who read that as "the best Hitler'.)
posted by bardophile at 11:47 PM on May 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

vanar sena: Sachin-like.
posted by bardophile at 11:48 PM on May 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Unfortunately, he never played in the United States. But I think that if he would have, he would have been a .300 hitter. He was that much of a talent."

That can't be right. Hitting .300 is nothing special. Only 35 players have hit above .400 for a season. That's baseball for you. Three hits outta ten at bats and you're no one special. Four hits outta ten and you're a legend.

Hitler would have been a .400 hitter.
posted by three blind mice at 1:43 AM on May 23, 2013

I was wondering about that too, three blind mice. I just assumed my recollection of baseball numbers was incorrect. Typo, do you think?
posted by bardophile at 1:59 AM on May 23, 2013

Part of the problem is translating minor league numbers to major league numbers...the best players in the world play in MLB, and generally have for a long time, at least since the race barrier fell. You can definitely argue that players like Ruth may have had their numbers inflated by not playing against anyone who wasn't white*, but it's also been shown that taking national heroes and placing them in MLB often reveals them to be good (even very, very good), but not the gods they appeared to be back home.

Which isn't to say the very best player in the world might not be playing in Venezuela or Cuba or Japan at the moment...but it's unlikely.

I worked on a web site years ago to accompany the documentary (and book) The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball. It's a good read (and film), well worth your time if you enjoyed this story.

* Likewise, we'll never know for certain how good a player someone like the Negro League's Cool Papa Bell was--you can argue with some conviction he may have been the greatest pitcher of all time...but there's no way to determine that definitively.
posted by maxwelton at 2:23 AM on May 23, 2013

There's a huge difference between being great in Triple A and being great in MLB. About the only level in between is Japan's pro league, and few of them make the leap.

Guys hitting huge numbers of home runs in Triple A? They're not major league caliber. If you're rocking 20-30 HR in Triple A, which runs about 144 game seasons, you're looking at the 30-35 HR level in MLB. That gets you called up, and if you can make those numbers -- or hell, put up just .275 with 20HR and some defensive skills, you'll stay up for the rest of your career.

But there are the guys who just cream it in Triple A, and when they get to the big show, they just can't handle the pitching. Those are the guys who stand atop the career minor league HR table. They're the ones who couldn't play up, and the whole point of Triple A is to get players ready for MLB.

So, it's hard to compare Espino. There were other reasons he never was called up. His short time in Jacksonville didn't start promising, but improvement was clear even in the short run. But we simply can't really compare him by career number to others in the minors, because, by definition, anyone else with anywhere near his number of games in the minors was a failure at a MLB, and he didn't go to the bigs for other reasons.

So. As Max Welton says. We can never truly know how great Cool Papa Bell was, because he was denied the chance to play with, and against, the best -- and we can't know just how good Espino was.

But, wow. 1964: .371/.479/.741 46 HR 115 RS 117 RBI. He hit .300 3HR with Jacksonville in 30 games, which extending linearly implies 15HR over a full season, but he was improving. In 1966, he hit .369/.495/.667, with 31HR. In 1972, .356/.481/.670 with 47HR, 101 RBI, and his walks kept climbing (94, the league high, in 1972) -- note how OBP generally climbs, while BA and SLG generally drops. That's guys walking him. Because, apparently, they're afraid of him.

He was either one of two things. He was a guy who wasn't going to make it in the bigs, or he was an MLB class star that never got the chance.

And, we will never know.

Thanks for the post. I never heard of this guy, and I'm glad I know about him now.

Also, you forgot Pull Hitler, and of course, Small Ball Hitler.

posted by eriko at 4:28 AM on May 23, 2013

A fellow baseball fan is using "Ripkenesque" as praise. So, maybe it's a thing, though influenced by actual name...
posted by childofTethys at 4:58 AM on May 23, 2013

Even with a .400 average, Hitler wouldn't have made much impression in the bigs; he was a selfish singles hitler
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:01 AM on May 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

Hitting .300 is nothing special.

Hitting .300 over your career will typically land you in contention for the Hall of Fame, depending on other stats, so I don't think that's accurate. Hitting .400 is a whole other stratosphere, and doesn't really happen anymore, since the game favours power over contact.

I think the point of that "he would have hit .300" statement is to convey that he was a legitimate major leaguer. Whether he would have been a superstar is the open question.
posted by dry white toast at 6:39 AM on May 23, 2013

Great piece; I never heard of the guy, and now I'm glad I know about him. Thanks for the post. (The stupid, childish derail pisses me off but klang said what needed to be said.)

> I think the point of that "he would have hit .300" statement is to convey that he was a legitimate major leaguer.

Yeah, exactly. It would be absurd to say of any minor leaguer that "he would have hit .400" and no professional would make such a statement. "If the guy's that good in the Mexican League, he's probably a legitimate major leaguer" is a reasonable thing to say. And hitting .300 for a career is damn good.
posted by languagehat at 8:27 AM on May 23, 2013